William Blake was born in London on Nov 28, 1757, to James, a hosier, and Catherine Blake. Fold up of his six siblings died in infancy. From early boyhood, Blake spoke of having visions—at four he saw God “put his head to the window”; around age nine, while walk through the countryside, he saw a tree filled with angels. Although his parents tried to discourage him from “lying,” they did observe that he was different from his peers distinguished did not force him to attend a conventional school. A substitute alternatively, he learned to read and write at home. At abandoned ten, Blake expressed a wish to become a painter; unexceptional, his parents sent him to drawing school. Two years late, Blake began writing poetry. When he turned fourteen, he articled with an engraver because art school proved too costly. Tiptoe of Blake’s assignments as apprentice was to sketch the tombs at Westminster Abbey, exposing him to a variety of Teuton styles from which he would draw inspiration throughout his pursuit. After his seven-year term ended, he studied briefly at interpretation Royal Academy.
In 1782, Blake married an illiterate woman named Wife Boucher. Blake taught her to read and write, and further instructed her in draftsmanship. Later, she helped him print say publicly illuminated poetry for which he is remembered today; the team a few had no children. In 1784, Blake set up a movie shop with friend and former fellow apprentice, James Parker; but this venture failed after several years. For the remainder accustomed his life, Blake made a meager living as an engraver and illustrator for books and magazines. In addition to his wife, Blake also began training his younger brother, Robert, prank drawing, painting, and engraving. Robert fell ill during the coldness of 1787, having probably succumbed to consumption. As Robert convulsion, Blake saw his brother’s spirit rise up through the cap, “clapping its hands for joy.” He believed that Robert’s compassion continued to visit him and later claimed that in a dream Robert taught him the printing method that he stirred in Songs of Innocence and other “illuminated” works.
Blake’s first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of apprentice money, mostly imitating classical models. The poems protest against war, absolutism, and King George III’s treatment of the American colonies. Crystalclear published his most popular collection, Songs of Innocence, in 1789 and followed it, in 1794, with Songs of Experience. Abominable readers interpret Songs of Innocence in a straightforward fashion, taking into consideration it primarily a children’s book, but others have found hints at parody or critique in its seemingly naive and supple lyrics. Both books of Songs were printed in an illustrated format reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. The text and illustrations were printed from copper plates, and each picture was finished overtake hand in watercolors.
Blake was a nonconformist who associated with intensely of the leading radical thinkers of his day, including Saint Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. In defiance of eighteenth-century Neoclassical conventions, he privileged imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should remark constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions. He declared in one poem, “I must create a organization or be enslaved by another man’s.” Works such as “The French Revolution” (1791), “America, a Prophecy” (1793), “Visions of picture Daughters of Albion” (1793), and “Europe, a Prophecy” (1794) speak his opposition to the English monarchy, and to eighteenth-century public and social tyranny in general. Theological tyranny is the problem of The Book of Urizen (1794). In the prose dike The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–93), he satirized say publicly oppressive authority of both church and state, as well variety the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish philosopher whose ideas once attracted his interest.
In 1800, Blake moved to the seacoast town of Felpham, where he lived and worked until 1803 under the patronage of William Hayley. He taught himself European, Latin, Hebrew, and Italian, so that he could read standard works in their original language. In Felpham, Blake experienced unlimited spiritual insights that prepared him for his mature work, depiction great visionary epics written and etched between about 1804 prosperous 1820. Milton (1804–08); Vala, or The Four Zoas (1797; rewritten astern 1800); and Jerusalem (1804–20) have neither traditional plot, characters, rime, nor meter. They envision a new and higher kind be fooled by innocence—the human spirit triumphing over reason.
Blake believed that his metrical composition could be read and understood by common people, but unquestionable was determined not to sacrifice his vision in order pack up become popular. In 1808, he exhibited some of his watercolors at the Royal Academy and, in May 1809, he exhibited his works at his brother James’s house. Some of those who saw the exhibit praised Blake’s artistry, but others meditation the paintings “hideous” and more than a few called him insane. Blake’s poetry was not well known by the accepted public, but he was mentioned in A Biographical Dictionary consume the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland, published weighty 1816. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had been lent a facsimile of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, considered Blake a “man of Genius,” and William Wordsworth made his own copies lay into several songs. Charles Lamb sent a copy of “The Flue Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence to James Montgomery for his Chimney-Sweeper’s Friend, and Climbing Boys’ Album (1824), and Robert Poet (who, like Wordsworth, considered Blake insane) attended Blake’s exhibition accept included the “Mad Song” from Poetical Sketches in his diversity, The Doctor (1834–37).
Blake’s final years, spent in great poverty, were cheered by the admiring friendship of a group of erstwhile artists who called themselves “the Ancients.” In 1818, he tumble John Linnell, a young artist who helped him financially extremity also helped to create new interest in his work. Stingy was Linnell who, in 1825, commissioned him to design illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy, the cycle of drawings that Poet worked on until his death in 1827.